"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Saturday, June 18, 2005

Bush Family Values

Political lepidopterist John Ellis "Call me Jeb™, neighbor!" Bush returns to his favorite pinned butterfly. If he spent half this much time dealing with his crackhead daughter and asshole son, they might eventually become useful, productive citizens. Or they might end up like their useless, corrupt uncles.

In the meantime, apparently Jeb™ has nothing better to do than fuck with Michael Schiavo, who evidently has simply not done quite enough time in purgatory to satisfy Jeb™ and his vampiric wingnut supporters. Always one more pint of blood to suck, isn't there?

Gov. Jeb Bush asked a state prosecutor Friday to look into the circumstances of Terri Schiavo's collapse, saying a new autopsy report revealed a possible gap between when Schiavo fell unconscious and when her husband called paramedics.

"It's a significant question that during this entire ordeal was never brought up," Bush told reporters in Tallahassee after faxing a letter to Bernie McCabe, the state attorney in Pinellas County, where Schiavo suffered extreme brain damage in 1990 when her heart temporarily stopped beating.

It's not a "significant question", it's a stupid question. Let's think about this logically, for one second -- if Michael Schiavo deliberately wanted his wife to die, as can be safely inferred from Jeb™'s question, why didn't he just wait five more minutes? Forget the ridiculous (and completely unsubstantiated) notion that Schiavo "wanted" her dead, or was an abusive bastard; forget that even if he had wanted her dead, waiting around for a cardiac arrest induced by a mineral imbalance is a remarkably inefficient means for achieving one's nefarious ends.

Bottom line -- Michael Schiavo could have waited a few more minutes, she would have died almost immediately after, and this whole thing would have been completely forgotten fifteen long years ago, instead of spending all this time watching his shell of a wife wither away slowly and painfully, and having to endure the criticisms and threats from people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, and clearly haven't the sense to safely tie their shoes on a regular basis.

Bush is a devout Catholic and abortion opponent whose personal convictions played a part in his decision to fight the ending of Schiavo's life. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he thought Bush's latest move was "a product of his own personal beliefs" but also a possible attempt to win political points.

Duh, no shit, Sherlock, you really think so? Glad we have Larry Fucking Sabato to point out the flaming obvious fact that this is nothing more than a red meat issue for Jeb™ to whip up his base with. This is a stalking horse issue, pure and simple. It will die a quiet death, as the assorted forensic experts gather to once again re-assert that there is no there there, there never was, and that a lot of people owe Michael Schiavo a huge apology.

But the point will have been made where it needs to be made, which is all that mattered to Jeb™ in the first place. And the timing of it is most propitious -- close enough to the midterms so that the people he wants to remember all this will remember it, far enough away so the people he needs to forget about it will have long forgotten.

This is where Fightin' Howard Dean and his scrappy team of Brand Democrat® warriors need to step in. Get a mass-mailing grass-roots campaign started, boys -- every four to six months, between now and November '06, people should be reminded of this despicable behavior, of Jeb™ Bush's craven willingness to repeatedly use a helpless woman as a political football for his own stupid little career. Bill Nelson should talk to Mike Schiavo now, as well as later, and get him out on the stump with him if need be. Whatever it takes for America's Wang to come to its senses and not send vote-fixer Katherine Harris to the US Senate, as if it hadn't been degraded enough by the likes of "Doctor" Bill Frist.

I think this can be a real watershed event, if the Democrats quit operating under their persistent delusions of high-mindedness, and just start swinging. The hell with Joe Biden; the hell with John Edwards. Dean is right and they're wrong, period.